There was little legitimate movie news on the internet in early 1997, most tidbits trickling down from Hollywood’s print trade magazines, but the pioneering gossips and rumormongers of today’s post-and-verify-later model of online journalism hustled to find scoops and stake a claim with the eager readership. In its infancy, Ain’t It Cool News dished out flashy updates from its network of film industry spies; Corona’s Coming Attractions was a meticulous clearinghouse of rumors on just about every movie in development; for those that required all Star Wars, all the time, there were laser-focused sites like TheForce.net and RebelScum.com, which aggregated the latest Star Wars news (while occasionally dropping scoops of their own).

There was an embarrassment of rumor riches, and though a high percentage of the Star Wars scoops were bunk, people dove right in, elated that the most beloved film franchise of their youth had blasted back to the fore of pop culture. There was no reliable editorial oversight, only a treasure hunt, and the burden of bullshit detection fell on the reader. Which is how ludicrous stories — like the howler that nearly half the footage shot for The Phantom Menace came back from the lab out of focus — gained real traction in 1998.

Of course, the problem with this study is that no matter what the public in the SDCC’s sample indicated, the simple fact is that comic conventions throughout the country have been using the term “comic con” with wild abandon. As they did so, it seems that the SDCC was in some sort of trademark hibernation for years, with no action against all of these national comic cons that I can find. SLCC made the same point in its opening argument, their defense seemingly settling on the notion that the term “comic con” had become generic….

It seems that the SDCC fully anticipated this defense and decided to attempt to undermine it by finding a comic con out there, any comic con, to enter into a laughably cheap licensing agreement. That SDCC is doing this only at the same time it is bringing this suit to trial makes its motive plain and naked. It’s a shameless attempt to give its long-abandoned trademark the imprimatur of now having an actual licensee. As disappointing as the SDCC’s actions are, those of the sellout cons are all the more so. Just read the press release from Rose City Comic Con in Portland about how it licensed the “comic con” mark and you’ll get an idea of just how likely it is that the SDCC basically scripted this thing for them.

“Rose City Comic Con, Portland, Oregon’s largest comics and pop-culture convention, is proud to announce its association with San Diego Comic Convention for its three-day event taking place September 7-9, 2018 at the Oregon Convention Center. Rose City Comic Con received the license at no additional cost to the show, and acknowledges the trademark owned by San Diego Comic Convention and is excited to affiliate itself with the prestigious event.”

“Comic-Con, the San Diego convention, is without question the biggest and most important event in the comics and popular arts industry every year. To have the respected event recognize the hard work of Rose City Comic Con by providing a license agreement is really remarkable for the city of Portland and the incredible community of creators we’re lucky to have here,” said Rose City Comic Con founder Ron Brister.

So moist does Rose City seem to be over its free license that it must have failed to understand the motive for this free gift by the SDCC and the damage it might do to all of the other comic cons out there that are now or might in the future be under threat by SDCC. Now, I don’t believe that SDCC managing to squeeze a few licensees from this national barrel of turnips suddenly means that it didn’t long ago abandon the “comic con” mark, but it seems obvious that these sorts of free licenses aren’t for everyone. I expect the SLCC, for instance, would have jumped at a free license early on in this process. Perhaps it would instead have stood its ground on principle, but given the enormous cost in time and money, not to mention that this thing has dragged out now for several years, I doubt it.

So nice job, Rose City. While one con fights not just for its life, but for the common sense notion that “comic con” should no longer be considered a legit trademark, you went full Judas. Hope those 30 pieces of silver are worth it.

The “Escape Train” will travel 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) over 13 hours. The plot follows thus: A mysterious death has occurred aboard the train. Which player can identify the killer among them?

…The game was designed and built by InsideOut Escape Games, an escape room game pioneer in Finland. Challenges and puzzles will be movie-inspired, with two train carriages reserved exclusively for execution, but over a dozen cabins will be available for players to explore over its 13-hour run.

Online, people will also be able to watch the action as it happens.

“This is a rare opportunity to build a whole new type of game—it taking place on an actual train, with other passengers on board, adds a lot to the dynamics of an escape room experience,” says InsideOut’s Ágnes Kaszás. “To my knowledge, it is the longest-running game ever made, and we are very excited to be able to design it in the spirit of the new hit movie. It’s a dream come true, both for us and the players!”

(5) HELPS TO MAKE THE SEASON BRIGHT. Kim Huett asks, “What about a bonus full-colour Doctor Strangemind post given we’re heading into Christmas? Sure, why not.” So in “Virgil Finlay & Fungi! In Colour!”, Huett gives one of sf’s great artist a little help:

Hopefully this seasonal fungi will help to brighten up the lives of those of you currently trudging through winter. I like to think a dead fir festooned with such colourful parasites would look every bit as festive as the traditional sort.

(6) JUSTICE LEAGUE NEEDS A DOG. In “(Super)man’s Best Friend”, Claremont McKenna College fellow Steven J. Lenzner tells Weekly Standard readers that recent movie and TV versions of Superman have neglected Krypto, who is a good dog who wants to protect Superman.

We readers are shown Krypto’s thoughts—and those thoughts, both in form and content, show him to be a model dog. Krypto thinks only in the present tense, employing—to the extent possible—one-syllable words with concision; that is to say, he thinks as one would imagine a dog thinking. Moreover, the content of his thoughts goes far toward explaining the old adage that dog is a Kryptonian’s best friend. Krypto is, as befits a good American dog, deeply concerned with his happiness—and what makes him happy, above all, is his master’s praise: “Good boy.” The first word of the story is Krypto’s (“Man”), as is the last word (“Happy”). And in between Krypto displays the cardinal canine virtues: loyalty, courage, and affection. Krypto loves his friends and hates his enemies. And his circle of friends has a limited radius. He has none of that easy and indiscriminate affection that diminishes the charm of a dog’s love for its master.

(7) IT’S BULL. In “Hitler banned it; Gandhi loved it: ‘The Story of Ferdinand,’ the book and, now, film”, the Washington Post’s Karen McPherson discusses the classic children’s book written by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson, which has just been remade as Ferdinand. She discusses how the previous animated version of the film, Disney’s 1938 Ferdinand the Bull, won an Academy Award and how Leaf and Lawson’s book was praised by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and denounced by Adolf Hitler, who called the book “dangerous democratic propaganda.”

Leaf wrote “The Story of Ferdinand” in less than an hour one rainy fall afternoon as a gift to his good friend Lawson. Contending that “dogs, rabbits, mice and goats had all been done a thousand times,” Leaf focused his story on a Spanish bull named Ferdinand who eschews fighting for flower-sniffing, refusing to fight even when forced to face the matador in the ring. Instead, Ferdinand sits down to enjoy the fragrance of the flowers adorning the hair of women spectators.

One of the traditions of the Olympics is the torch relay, in which people carry the flame from Olympia, Greece to the location of the Games. In 2018, the Olympic Games will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the torch relay is currently underway. Earlier this week, the HUBO, the humanoid robot, carried the flame for part of its journey.

HUBO only covered 150 meters (about 500 feet) with the torch, but its presence was largely symbolic. As part of its torch duties, HUBO performed an example of a disaster rescue operation in which it cut a hole in a brick wall (while still holding the torch). It was intended as a “display of innovation and creativity,” according to PyeongChang 2018 Organizing Committee President LEE Hee-beom.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

December 13, 1951 — The Day The Earth Stood Still received its theatrical premiere in the UK.

December 13, 1996 — Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! came out on this day.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY CHIMNEY SWEEP

Born December 13, 1925 – Dick Van Dyke

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Usually you look in the Bible for what happened “In the beginning…” but Chip Hitchcock found the answer at Mr. Boffo.

An international team of scientists have announced the discovery of a previously unknown species of prehistoric penguin.

The bird waddled around off the east coast of New Zealand between 55 and 60 million years ago. And it was a giant as far as penguins go. The researchers estimate that it probably weighed about 220 pounds and was around 5 feet 10 inches tall.

“That’s about as tall as a medium-sized man,” says Gerald Mayr, a paleontologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Franfurt, Germany, and the lead author of the new study published today in Nature Communications. “This particular specimen is one of the largest known fossil penguins.”

The largest living penguin, on the other hand, the Emperor penguin, is a good bit shorter — around 4 feet.

The scientists have named the new species Kumimanu biceae, which means ‘monster bird’ in the Maori language. (Kumi is the name of a monster in Maori mythology and manu means bird.)

The new finding is really cool, says Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas, Austin, who wasn’t involved in the study. “I mean, what’s not cool about a human-sized penguin?” she says.

Google is deepening its push into artificial intelligence (AI) by opening a research centre in China, even though its search services remain blocked in the country.

Google said the facility would be the first its kind in Asia and would aim to employ local talent.

Silicon Valley is focusing heavily on the future applications for AI.

China has also indicated strong support for AI development and for catching up with the US.

(14) DOZOIS REVIEWS. The title of his December 13 entry is “Gardner Dozois Reviews Short Fiction” but most of it is brief descriptions of stories recently on Tor.com or in F&SF. Should that be what you’re looking for, you’ll find it at Locus Online.

… We have all met or heard from bitter midlisters. These are the people who publicly rant about how the success of their bestselling peers has nothing to do with quality, but with luck, or favoritism, and how the game is rigged against them. They bloviate on forums and social platforms about how they didn’t get the sort of success they were owed. This is often how you can differentiate the bitter midlister from those simply exhausted by the –isms inherent in publishing. Bitter midlisters feel that they are owed success by virtue of their existence, instead of simply that they understand they need to work harder in a system rigged to favor certain types of books and authors….

It used to be that when I wrote, I’d be railing against all the outside voices, the supposed gatekeepers, the editors and agents who rejected my work. As I’ve become more skilled, I realize that my greatest enemy isn’t them at all, and never was. My greatest enemy these days is just myself, and the BMV™.

I have a great deal to achieve in this, the second half of my life. The last year of horror had led me to double down on my worst tendencies, to withdraw, to simply endure. But I want the next thirty years of my life to be more than mere endurance. I want to truly thrive. I want to come into my own as a skilled artist, as a novelist. It’s always been my goal to be an exceptionally skilled novelist, the best, and I won’t get there by hiding in my house in Ohio with a pillow over my head and nursing the BMV™

(21) THE SHAPE OF WATER. The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro appeared with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. He begins by saying his manager’s call about the Golden Globe nominations woke him up “it took me four nominations to find the glasses.”

(22) LEGO ANNIHLATION. Mark Hepworth sent the link with a note: “Either genius, or a tragic waste of Lego. The main event starts at about 2:50.”

David, Henrik and Sylvia plays with Lego. This time it’s the giant 1.2 meter, 3152 piece, 3.5 kg heavy Star Wars – Super Star Destroyer. This episode has a twist to it. We mount the Super Star Destroyer on the rocket sled and accelerate it up to 108km/h. Very rapid disassembly follows.

[Thanks to Mark Hepworth, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, David Doering, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

48 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 12/13/17 It’s Crackers To Scroll A Rozzer The Pixel In Snide”

@3: It would be interesting to hear what Rose City has to say for itself; I tend to wonder about anything that harsh. OTOH, one wonders whether (if the facts are as given), a court would actually be taken in by such a sham….

(8) PEDAL TO THE MEDAL. Nice robot, but isn’t carrying the torch supposed to be an honor for a person, not just a gimmicky stunt? Sigh.

(12) BIG BIRD. Holy carp, that’s taller than me! ::looks at picture:: Whoops, it’s not 5’10” tall (height), but 5’10” long if you lay it out to maximize length (counting beak and tail sticking out lower than feet; darn, I have no beak to add to my height . . .). That’s still impressive, especially considering how much larger than the Emperor penguin that is.

(22) LEGO ANNIHLATION. Hahaha, I’m not sure why they did it, but that was kinda fun. I love how the guy kept saying he was surprised it stayed on the track. And I wonder what fell off the star destroyer about halfway through; in the “coming toward you” shots, it looks like something falls off both sides.

(1) That quote from The Verge’s review reads quite differently when you add the next sentence:

Audiences will likely come away from The Last Jedi with a lot of complaints and questions. But they’re at least likely to feel they’re in the hands of someone who cares about the series as much as they do, someone who loves its history, but sees the wide-open future ahead of it as well.

And the rest of the review didn’t seem negative to me; it had both praises and cons. The author even says that she’s “about 80 percent positive on it” in the comments.

7) One of the biggest Yuletide-traditions of Sweden is to watch one hour of Disney-shorts. During this hour, the roads are empty, no emergencies occur and and police and hospitals can relax.

Part of the Disney-hour is Ferdinand. One year, Disney tried to remove Ferdinand and there was an enormous uproar among the Swedes. There is something about Ferdinand that speaks directly to the Swedish soul so try to remove him at your own peril.

We did Ferdinand (which I keep wanting to make Ferd’nand, after the eternally running silent comic character) as reader’s theater in a multi-mode show in high school, along with the warmup (I directed the face warmups: “Smile! Frown! Splunge!…), the machine mime (audience members joined us in linked repetitive motions), the decision play (where we asked the audience how to proceed in a sketch we made up on the spot), and other readings. We did it one time on the stage at Rocky Mountain High School and once for the kids at Foothills Gateway, a school for various disabilities and cognitive differences. They loved us at Gateway, taking part enthusiastically, and when it was all over and the seven of us got back into Paul’s VW Beetle, we each had a bag of candy that they had put together for us. Inside the car, I held up my bag and said, “You know what this means, guys? We just got paid!We’re professionals!”

The show’s poster had two copies, both of which I drew on large sheets of paper with a #2 Rapidograph. One may still be on the wall at the school. I think the director (who is now a priest, or a retired priest) got the other.

@15: I note with amusement that one of the proposals involves unleashing a flood of BEMs. Yes, that supposedly stands for Bathypelagic Excursion Modules; did nobody know the traditional meaning, or was this a backronym?

Mm-whatever about the impact (or none!) of the new S/Wars film, anyone coming in Aug 2019 to either (or both and now both confirmed) (a) Worldcon/Dublin (15-19) or one week later (b) Eurocon/Belfast (22-26 and ye don’t have to be just European to attend (b)-all welcome), should be aware that most of the S/Wars locations are well away from either Irish city. Either they are in the very far S/West of the island ((c ) Scellig Michael, an island off Co Kerry, et al) or the very far North ((d) Malin Head, Co Donegal, et al). Look these locations up on the internet and then see how far (c ) is from (a) and (d) from (b). Tho’ (d) is a possibility from (b). And one would need to set aside extra time (or give up some Con time) to visit them. (d) is a possibility via Derry (rail/bus from central Belfast and then from Derry, a local bus). (c ) is firstly a train/bus journey from central Dublin (prob to Killarney) and then by bus onto Portmagee (there is an island tour from there -inter alia). Use the net for more info. At least re (b), the more local G of Thrones locations are nearby (and I’m told that (b) will be covering at least some of those anyway). best.

@ Kendall: Sweden is nice and friendly. Swedes are even nicer and friendlier. Alas, since about ten years, the most dangerous mammal in Sweden (measured in “people killed by”) is again Homo Sapiens, having finally managed to edge Alces Alces out. 🙁

I was thinking of “Dinner for One” in terms of holiday traditions as well. I must, however, protest the implication in the article that it’s a bad sketch. The slapstick comedy just works, so that my children who don’t speak a word of English immediately found it hilarious.

Any other tangential Christmas traditions? I was thinking that both It’s a Wonderful Life and the playing of a Fairytale of New York both fit. I mean they have connections to Christmas but aren’t strictly speaking Christmas things.

Die Hard is become a Christmas movie. Love Actually seems to turn up on the Christmas DVD shelf in stores. My brother and I used to watch The Life of Brian on Christmas morning.

I was just looking at photos of John Murray Anderson’s Almanac on Broadway where The Dinner for One sketch was performed by Hermione Gingold and Billy DeWolfe.

Xtifr, I can’t believe my eyes. A cursory search doesn’t turn up any matches, yet this is so basic, so inevitable… makes me want to do the same with all the Firesign Theater titles: “I Think We’re All Pixels In This Scroll” (A particularly fannish one, as anyone who lived in the Pixel Bus Building would tell you.) “Everything You Scroll Is Wrong”

Actually, after those three, most of ’em don’t work. Still, kudos, pal!

What makes Dinner For One so good is that it works on multiple levels. You can enjoy the physical slapstick as young child, then when you get older you start understanding the dialogue. By the time you get the very last joke (“I’ll do my very best”), you’re usually somewhere in your 20s or even older, because there are some things you can’t imagine at a younger age.

@Kip W: I got to thinking and checking and found I’d made a similar but slightly inferior suggestion of Don’t Scroll That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pixels some time back. I still like Scroller Maidens From Outer Space and Returned For Re-scrolling from that batch, even though they have a conspicuous lack of pixels.

gottacook: I played around with it and didn’t come up with anything I was impressed with. Maybe I missed the configuration you found.

John A. Arkansawyer: Ah! Well, that might explain how I was unable to find it. I calls it a good suggestion, and Scroller Maidens is perfectly cromulent as well. I considered “In The Next Scroll, You’re On You’re Own,” but thought I might have been getting obscure, not to mention the lack of pixels you bring up. (Which reminds me that OGH said something a while back about whether all titles needed both, or even either, but we Filers seem to have our own notions.)

Yeah, I must have said something twelve or so years ago when I started on flickr that they interpreted as “mark everything I post from now on as adult content and don’t let grownups look at it.” I’ve changed it to “safe” now, assuming it doesn’t snap back when I stop looking directly at it.